Don produces minimal rainfall

Published 9:00 am, Sunday, July 31, 2011

The tropical system meteorologists hoped would quench South Central Texas' thirst for rain dissipated soon after coming ashore on Saturday, when the state's arid air overpowered the storm.

“The drought killed Tropical Storm Don,” said National Weather Service forecaster Chris Morris. “We got some brief rainfall across the area, but it really didn't produce much rainfall. This was an unlikely scenario.”

After building some strength in the Gulf of Mexico, Don made landfall around 10 p.m. Friday in Baffin Bay, according to the NWS. By 4 a.m. Saturday, Don was mostly a dud.

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A forecaster with the National Hurricane Center wrote this final update on the storm system: “The Don is dead. The cyclone literally evaporated over Texas about as fast as I have ever seen without maintains involved.”

The storm system dumped about .75 inches of rain on San Antonio between Friday and Sunday morning, according to the NWS' measurements at the San Antonio International Airport. Winds were about 25 mph when the storm made landfall, but died down soon after.

Starting Sunday, temperatures for the next week will be high and could break records, but relative humidity will be down, Morris said, giving Texans a reprieve from the steamy, sauna-like conditions from last week.

Sunday's high is 103 with heat indices between 103 and 106, the NWS said, and winds of 5 to 15 mph. Record high temperatures are expected to be tied Monday, Thursday and Friday, according to the NWS, and highs are expected to remain above 100 through the week.